Tim Banks is the CEO of APM, a Canada wide construction and property development company, with its head office in Charlottetown, PEI. My family has lived on PEI for over eight generations and I was born at the Prince County Hospital in Summerside, PEI. I am hoping someone will soon develop a blood test to authenticate when you actually become an "Islander" as I am still having problems explaining where I'm from?

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

If you've been looking for something on my blog over the last 24 hours ....don't be alarmed as I've been off on a whirlwind tour..I had meetings in Halifax Tuesday afternoon and I was looking at a new development site in Bridgewater at 8:30 Wednesday morning then back to Halifax for a quick meeting at 11:00 am, then on the road to our call centre property in Port Hawkesbury for a meeting at 3:00 pm and then back to Caribou to make the 6:00 pm ferry to PEI which turned out to be running a little late. As if I didn't have enough to do, a friend and I couldn't decide where to eat on Tuesday night in Halifax, as there are just too many good choices. So we developed a plan to go "Grazing" on appetizers at some of my favourites and compare notes. We decided to walk from my digs on Oxford Street to downtown and our first stop was at "gio" which I believe is one of the top spots in Halifax. My friend hadn't been there previously so I had been bragging it up quite a bit, but it didn't seem that busy when we got there. I was getting a little nervous as sometime a place gets a little off and the crowd moves. We ordered up some New Brunswick oysters on ice which were excellent (that sported a couple of very nice sauces) but I still like them 'naked' and Malpeque's and Colville Bay's from PEI are still the best. Our waitress was extremely friendly, very knowledgeable and easy to look at (attractive) and as we polished off the oysters she presented us with a small taster of Duck, prepared by the Chef, that my friend raved about. We rounded off our order with a scrumptious seafood chowder (that has won numerous awards) and it hit the spot as it was really cold in Halifax last night. We tried to dig up some gossip about the "stars" that stay at the adjoining Prince George Hotel from our waitress but she was tight lipped, but teased us enough to know that the rumours that most of them stay and eat there are probably true. Gio has a very warm and comfortable atmosphere (with good prices) and with the great food in our belly it was going to be hard to leave but we had to get back to our mission of grazing. We then headed back out in the cold to "Cut", a new steakhouse at the Courtyard Marriott, that I've had the ocasssion to eat at a few times over the last month and it had been very good. Unfortunately we both chose a shrimp appetizer dish, with mine on top of a ceasar salad, and it was all very disappointing and the service just so, so... it kind of put a damper on the tasting night as we went from the best and the only to go from there was down. Although afterwards I said I was going to cut out "Cut" in the future I think I will give them another chance... from there we couldn't decide if we should try Bish or da Maurizio's but we decided just to opt for desert so we headed up to "Seven". I was there a few weeks ago with my darling bride and a bunch of friends and they have this chocolate mousse cake with a side of ice cream 'to die for' that was calling my name. "Seven" was also very quiet so we sat at the bar and I swallowed down the addictive dessert and with the great gab we were having with the female bartender, I had near talked myself into another desert before heading home...thank God I don't drink...bottom line is I had a night off from the "Blog", had some great food and "gio" must stand for "Get It On" as the food and service is happening there...time for bed!!!